“Clear something up for me, Walker. Are you most mad at her because she applied to the internship, lied to you about it, might take it, or won’t be here for the summer as planned?” Garth asked from across the campfire. We were on night watch again, and I thought he’d been asleep for a while.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Garth,” I replied, shifting into a more comfortable position. “In case you missed that the past fifty times I’ve told you that today.”
After leaving Rowen’s apartment and remembering my truck was a few hundred miles to the east, I’d pulled out my phone and did the unthinkable: I called Garth Black for a favor. He drove straight through the night, picked me up at the gas station I was camped out at, and managed to keep his mouth shut for the first half of the trip home. The second half, he hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut and I’d answered too many of his questions. I had only told him about Rowen’s internship, but I regretted giving him even that much information.
He hadn’t stopped playing drugstore psychologist since we’d gotten back to Willow Springs. Thankfully, Dad and Mom had taken one look at my face when I came through the front door and not fired off question after question. They let me have the space I needed and let me get back to my everyday routine. But they would pretend with me but only for so long. I expected Mom to be camped out on the porch swing, or Dad to invite me to go fishing, any day. They were fine giving space, but they weren’t fine sweeping and keeping dirt under the rug.
“Sure you want to talk about it. You’re Jesse f**king Walker. You’d talk your way through the phonebook if you could get someone to listen to you.”
“Let me clarify. I don’t want to talk to you about Rowen.” I’d avoided saying her name as much as I could. Each time I said it, I felt the way I did then: like a knife had been driven through each of my lungs. I hadn’t tried contacting her yet because I didn’t know what to say. I’d told her I needed time to work some things out, and I had yet to work anything out. I couldn’t call her just to say hi and not expect her to ask questions. So I hadn’t reached out to her yet, but she hadn’t tried reaching out to me either.
I didn’t know why she hadn’t. Maybe she was doing as I asked and giving me the space I requested. Maybe she was angry at me for storming out that night—which, by the way, she had every right to be pissed about. Maybe she felt guilty for the things that had happened. Maybe she was done with me. There were dozens of maybes, but the not knowing was the hardest to bear.
“Why not? I’m the perfect person to talk to because I don’t talk to anyone else. You don’t have to worry about me gossiping like an old biddy. I’m able to offer unbiased, third-party perspective that you, my friend, are not able to get on your own.”
I sighed. Garth wasn’t first person I’d choose to go to with a problem, but he was the only person for miles, and I knew from experience he wouldn’t shut up until I gave him something. “I’m not mad at her, Garth. I’m more mad at the situation.”
“What the hell does that even mean? ‘I’m mad at the situation.’ That sounds like some passive aggressive bullshit or something.”
So much for a fair, unbiased opinion.
“I’m not mad at Rowen for applying to the internship. I won’t be mad if she chooses to accept it. I won’t even be mad if that means we’ll barely see each other this summer.”
“A whole summer without sex? And that wouldn’t straight up make you want to pound something into smithereens?” Garth quirked a brow. “Hell, Jess, I’d be mad for you if you got the Charlie-Bravo all summer.”
“Charlie-Bravo?”
Garth rolled his eyes. “The dreaded C.B.”
“I’m going to need a translation because I’m not tracking.”
Another eye roll. “Cock-blocked. Charlie-Bravo equals C.B. equals cock-block. Shit, Walker. Get with the times.”
“If that’s all I’ve been missing out on, I’m not sure I want to get with the times.”
“Good, because you and your Puritan-ass ways will never catch up.” Garth shifted up onto his forearm and tossed a pebble into the dying fire. “You’re really not mad about her not telling you about that internship? You wouldn’t be mad if she took it, either? Come on, Jess, this is me you’re talking to. There’s nothing you could admit to me that would made me blink.”
“No, I’m really not mad. Present and future tense,” I added when Garth’s forehead lined. “I guess I’m more . . . worried about why she didn’t tell me.”
“Are you sure that’s worry twisting your stomach and not betrayal?”
I only needed to give that a moment of thought. “No, it’s worry. And maybe a little bit of hurt. I mean, was she worried I wouldn’t support her wanting to apply? Did she think I’d be disappointed in her if she took the job? What’s got me worried is why she kept it from me in the first place.”
“Maybe she didn’t tell you because she was worried of this.” Garth motioned at me. “Of you worrying your life away and your tender little heart getting hurt.”
“Always a pleasure discussing these kinds of things with you, Black,” I muttered.
“Chill your worried, hurt self out,” Garth said, tossing another pebble into the fire. “As much as you want to deny it, Rowen and I are cut from the same cloth.” Garth lifted his hand when I went to interrupt. “Hear me out. My point in saying that your girl and me are creatures of similar creation is that I understand where she was coming from when she decided not to tell you about the internship.”
I resisted the urge to cover my ears or get up and walk away. Garth Black was about as deep as a puddle.
“Deep down, Rowen and me are self-loathing types. We despise ourselves, so when life throws us shit, we accept it because that’s what we deserve. The people we let in, the people we love, we’re fiercely protective of. Those people are ten times more important to keep safe than ourselves. My guess is that’s why Rowen didn’t tell you. She wasn’t even sure she’d get the internship. Why make you worry about something that wasn’t even a sure thing?” Garth shrugged. “I mean, that’s what I would have done. I’d keep the truth from someone if I thought it would save them some pain.”
That was a lot to process. The wisdom behind the words and the fact that they’d just come from Garth Black’s mouth.
“While I’m working that out in my head, tell me one thing, Black. Who in the hell have you ever loved more than yourself?”
Garth rolled onto his back and folded his hands behind his head. “I was strictly speaking hypothetically about myself.”
“Didn’t sound like it . . .”
“Oh, blow me, Walker. I haven’t found my Rowen Sterling yet. I’m still, thankfully, in possession of my nutsac. Unlike someone else I know.”
“Two things. Don’t ever mention Rowen, blow, and nutsac in the same breath again. Ever. And two, what are you going to do when you find a girl who’s able to, miraculously, see past the piece-of-shit facade you keep up?”
Garth chuckled. “I’m going to run, Walker. And I’m not going to stop. Guys like me weren’t made for settling down.”
That was when a familiar and haunting sound rolled across the valley.
Garth burst up at the same time I did. “Wolves,” he cursed, tugging on his boots.
“They’re close, too.” As I grabbed the rifle we kept for exactly that kind of reason, my heart hammered. To hear wolves howling at night wasn’t uncommon, but that . . . hearing their yips and calls as they hunted was something I’d only ever heard once before.
“I’ll get the horses ready,” Garth called, rushing toward Sunny and Rebel. They had stopped their grazing to look in the direction of the crying wolves.
That was when I heard the next familiar sound. The one that unnerved me more than hearing wolves. The cry of a cow in distress.
“No time, Garth!” I hollered, running after him. “We’ve got to go now!”
Garth must have heard the same noise I had because, after pausing, he sprinted for Rebel and was just throwing his leg over him when I caught up.
“Easy, Sunny boy.” Both horses were clearly on edge, but they were ranch ponies, chosen because they didn’t shy away from just anything—not even a pack of wolves crying into the night. Grabbing onto his mane, I threw my leg over Sunny. Once I had the rifle strap around my shoulder, I sent Sunny after Garth and Rebel, who were already a good fifty yards ahead. Rebel was a tank—he had unparalleled strength when it came to a horse—but all that muscle slowed him down. It didn’t take long for Sunny and me to catch up.
The shrill yips, mingled with the low timbered cow cry, was getting louder, so we were heading in the right direction. I pushed Sunny faster until we’d pulled ahead of Garth and Rebel. I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t know if anything I could do would work, but I heard something crying out for help. That’s what propelled me forward.
The sky was clear and the moon was full—just the kind of conditions a rancher wanted when they heard a pack of wolves close by. Being able to see them at fifty yards was better than fifty inches.
There were a handful of wolves, four or five from what I could tell, that had taken down a yearling. One’s jaws were locked around its neck while the others tore into it. And the sound? The sound that yearling was making twisted my stomach. It was screaming, its cry muffled and wet from the wolf’s hold on its throat.
I knew it was the circle of life, I knew it was nature’s way, but witnessing it, hearing the life bleed out of a creature . . . there was nothing harmonic about it. There was nothing but violence and fear.
As a testament to the kind of horse Sunny was, he didn’t slow a bit. Garth was still a little ways back, yelling at me, but I couldn’t make out his words. All I heard was the animal crying out for help. The helpless creature restrained by its predators, dying at their whim. It was all hitting too close to home.
I slid the rifle off of my shoulder and had the safety off by the time I leapt off of Sunny. I was so close I could smell the blood. The wolves barely noticed me. They were too frenzied ripping chunks of flesh from the still-living animal. I fired off a shot. Then another. By the third one, all but one wolf, the one still at the yearling’s throat, had fled. One more shot, and that one let go and sprinted after its pack.
“Why didn’t you shoot those sons of bitches?” Garth flew off Rebel and sprinted the rest of the way to me.
I’d kept my eyes on the retreating wolves, but my gaze shifted to the yearling when I answered, “They didn’t deserve the quick death of a bullet.”
Garth came up behind me. “Damn it all to hell. Couldn’t they have waited until the thing was dead before they started tearing into it?”
The yearling wasn’t crying like it had been; probably because it was minutes away from dying. The only movement it made was an occasional muscle spasm. Blood covered the ground, and the thing had been so severely mangled, I saw portions of its anatomy. It was a gruesome sight, one that would make any man’s stomach churn.